Abstract
From whom to why, understanding customer’s intention with the use of persona.
Keywords: Customer Experience; Customer’s intention; Persona
Background of the study:
According to Klaus (2013), customer experience is “everywhere” and widely considered as “the next competitive battleground”, and he added: “the age of the customer has finally arrived”. The understanding of the customer experience will allow companies to deliver an outstanding or perfect customer experience (Frow & Payne, 2007). Carteron (2013), stated that an experience is composed of three main elements: the customer, the firm and their interaction – also called the moment of truth (Bitran & Lojo, 1993). What if the moment of truth was not the interaction itself but a global understanding of the customer’s needs which will facilitate the customer’s satisfaction of the interaction?
Oliver (1999), described the behavioural intention as the “conative stage” which influences the consuming act. Cooper (1999) introduced the concept of persona as being a real description of a service user (or customer) that helps service designers to understand who the service users are. Based on the use and the use’s intention, personas help marketing teams to create the experience customers are expecting for.
Purpose of the study:
Today, French hotels – and probably other over the world – use mainly a who-segmentation, based on the two major profiles – Professional and Leisure customers – in order to create “personalised” customer experience strategies. The purpose of the study is to propose an alternative solution to the who- segmentation, based on the understanding of hotels’ customers’ uses’ intentions. By looking on why customers are going to the hotel – customers’ intention –, it will be possible to focus on the use of the hotel. Thereby, hotels will be able to offer a better customer experience which will probably improve customer’s satisfaction.
Methodology:
The study was conducted as semi-structured qualitative interviews (Edwards & Holland, 2013) with current – interviews were made directly at the hotel – or past hotel customers – customers should have spent an experience within a maximum delay of a month. The main questions were related to: Their habits, their intentions and they were asked to relate their experience regarding the 5 major hotel steps: Reservation, Checkin, Room, Breakfast and Checkout. 37 interviews have been conducted based on the who-segmentation. 21 Professionals and 16 Leisure customers accepted to participate in the study. Personas for each typology of customers have been created and then compared to see if there were similarities.
Results
The interviews’ analysis allowed to create 6 personas: 3 representing the Professional customers’ uses and 3 others representing the Leisure customers’ uses. By comparing these personas, it had been possible to find similarities in the intention and the use of the hotel. Finally, after compiling the similar data, 3 “macro” personas based on hotel use’s intention had been created.
The first persona is coming to the hotel because it will give him all services – sources of satisfactions – that answer to his expectations linking with his intention. The persona is looking for a large room where he could work or spend time. He wants to be like home and to be treated as a member of the hotel family. He is also looking for services which will make him
appreciated the time – generally a long time – he will stay there – for example: restaurant, meeting room, pool...
The second persona is firstly attracted to the area where the hotel is located. The hotel is only used as an “infrastructure” to sleep. The persona can’t go back home to sleep, so the hotel is only here to accomplish this function. The persona is only looking for a comfortable bed and a useful access from the area to the hotel.
The last persona, is both interested by the area and the hotel. He is a mix of the two first personas.
Conclusions
The study suggests that taking into account intentions through personas can provide insightful information to deliver outstanding experiences to customers. The who-segmentation used nowadays is limited, in the sense that it relies solely on the binary purpose of their stay, i.e; leisure or professional.
The latter knowledge provides little means to frame personalised services, thus the impact on customers’ level of satisfaction. In terms of practice, hotel strategists may benefit from the why- segmentation based on customers’ intentions to enhance their experiences. Building useful and insightful personas necessitates time and field research. It should be considered as an investment and tool that will help to enhance customer experience, thus satisfaction.
Based on the conclusions of this study, it is possible to suggest an expansion of the Quality Service Model of Parasuraman, Zeithaml, & Berry (1985). In fact, this work shows that customers’ needs are primarily linking to the use’s intention described in the persona. By focusing on the “Personal Needs”
notion of the Quality Service Model, it is possible to suggest a Quality Hotel Experience Model:
Starting from different Customer’s Intentions, it is possible to create multiple Persona’s descriptions – in this study three Persona have been created – which, then, will determinate specific Customer’s Needs. These three elements are part of the Customer’s Expected Experience evaluation proposed by Parasuraman, Zeithaml, & Berry in their Quality Service Model (1985), and have to be clearly understood by the hotels. Finally, the Quality Hotel Experience Model suggests that if the hotels want their Customers to be satisfied, they have to propose to each persona’s typology an experience that will fit their specific needs as much as possible. In this last situation, the hotels focus on the Customer’s Perceived Experience described in the Quality Service Model (Parasuraman, Zeithaml, & Berry, 1985).
Research implications and limitations:
This work focus mainly on French hotel users – only one interviewee came from UK. It would be interesting to replicate this study in different countries to confirm the results. It would also be interesting to confirm the qualitative findings through quantitative studies based on more customers. The personas created are “big picture” meaning that it will be certainly possible to refine them in more precise categories.
Future researches should also focus on the impact of the persona’s expectation(s) vs. the persona’s perceived experience on the final satisfaction as described on the Hotel Experience Model.
References
Bitran, G., & Lojo, M. (1993). A framework for analyzing the quality of the customer interface.
European Management Journal, 11(4), 385–396.
Carteron, V. (2013). Expérience client et distribution « omnicanale ». L’Expansion Management Review, (149), 25–35.
Cooper, A. (1999). The Inmates Are Running the Asylum. Indianapolis, IN, USA: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc.
Edwards, R., & Holland, J. (2013). What is qualitative interviewing? A&C Black.
Frow, P., & Payne, A. (2007). Towards the “perfect” customer experience. Journal of Brand Management, 15(2), 89–101.
Klaus, P. (2013). Preservers, Transformers & Vanguards: Measuring the Profitability of Customer Experience Strategies. Design Management Review, 24(4), 24–29.
Oliver, R. L. (1999). Whence consumer loyalty? Journal of Marketing, 33–44.
Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V. A., & Berry, L. L. (1985). A Conceptual Model of Service Quality and Its Implications for Future Research. Journal of Marketing, 49(4), 41–50.
